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http://media.wgaw.org/audio/Cameron_Feeney.mp3


This interview with James Cameron goes on for an hour but is interesting how long it takes to go from concept to a movie while waiting for movie making animation technology to catch up with his vision for his fictional planet and the idea of an Avatar actor where the real actor does not appear and blah, blah... the creative process in action lasts long and costs a great deal of money.


Jen brought the movie home in two dimensional version which was still very impressive. The 3D version is supposedly even better. But I could only sit still for half the movie, I'll watch the rest tomorrow. It is pretty long and the plot is thin -so predictable that even with the world's greatest special effects, I found my mind wandering. I started looking stuff up on the computer or reading book covers on the desk beside me.


I gave into my need for something that moves a little faster like my notes on Heidegger's existentialism and its influence on Rollo May, father of American Existential Psychotherapy. May was heavily influenced by the writings of the philosopher/theologian Paul Tillich in developing an existential approach to therapy. May was also influenced by many of the existential philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.

Recently, Jennifer wanted me to give her a simple explanation of existentialism and I get stuck by words like phenomenology, epistemology and ontology. Existential theory has four major themes: 1) Death, 2) Freedom (& Responsibility), 3) Isolation, and 4) Meaninglessness. But it is difficult to come up with a one sentence answer and before you know it I'm lost in all the nuances of trying to define it.

Some people say the essence of existentialism can be summed up by saying "existence precedes essence" which seems terse and unclear in its meaning.*

Jean Paul Sartre says, "man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards."

Existentialism tends to focus on the question of human existence and the conditions of this existence. What is meant by existence is the concrete life of each individual, and his concrete ways of being in the world.  


A central theme is that since the world "in-itself" is absurd, that is, not "fair," then a meaningful life can at any point suddenly lose all its meaning. 


The reasons why this happens are many, ranging from a tragedy that "tears a person's world apart," to the results of an honest inquiry into one's own existence. 


Such an encounter can make a person mentally unstable, and avoiding such instability by making people aware of their condition and ready to handle it is one of the central themes of existentialism.

Existentialists say, these encounters with the absurd are where we are most in touch with our condition as humans. Such an encounter cannot be without philosophical significance, and existentialist philosophers derive many metaphysical theories from these encounters. These are often related to the self, consciousness and freedom as well as the nature of meaning.

I had just read Rollo May's book "Love and Will" and talked to Jennifer about it the first  time we met - how romantic- over 30 years ago..  Right now I'm reading Victor Frankl (Logo-therapy) and just finished Camus "L'Etranger"** because I want to compare existentialism and Jon Kabatt-Zinn's Mindfulness.  May and Viktor Frankl were the major proponents of “existential psychotherapy” and should be studied by anyone interested in the influence of existential philosophy on other disciplines.  May’s primary theme of “anxiety” fits neatly with the framework of existentialism and free will.  

Bottom line is that I can't define existentialism to this day.  I immersed myself in Ernst Becker's 'Denial of Death' because of an article in 'Psychology Today' when I was at BCIT.   The interview  was conducted on Becker's deathbed by Sam Keen and Becker stuck to his principles like his atheism.  This made me think he new what he was talking about  when he pronounced things like,

"[People] cannot endure [their] own littleness unless [they] can translate it into meaningfulness on the
largest possible level."
~ Ernest Becker, 1973, The Denial of Death, p. 196

 But the essence of the idea still escapes me and I hate to let go of it after thinking about it for so long.

Reading Karen Armstrong's book about the "History of God"  you are told that God is a moving target and my preconceived notions got squelched.  She says, "...in an important sense God was a creation of the creative imagination...God did not really exist - and yet that "He" was the most important reality in the world."   God is an evolving changing concept open to human imagination.   This kind of blasphemy from a woman who left training as a Nun to go back to the secular world who now claims to be leaning toward the belief in God again.  But which God and so on..  No help here.  Furthermore, when you call yourself an atheist what the word means will vary depending on the current conception of God.

But I like what Simone de Beauvoir said in 1948,

"The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd
is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning
is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished
rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous
that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence."
                                                                                                                         ~ The Ethics Of Ambiguity

Trust ambiguity and skepticism every time and you're going to be O.K. is my conclusion!!!  And don't be discouraged by the absurdity of it all.

James Cameron in the interview on the link above says movies like Acvatar are Rorschach tests  and get people thinking and talking without needing to say so much as to suggest....  Maybe he answers all my questions in the 2nd half of the movie.  I'll find out tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

*The proposition that existence precedes essence makes his existence more significant.(French: l'existence précède l'essence) is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence or nature of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence. To existentialists, the human being - through his consciousness - creates his own values and determines a meaning to his life, for in the beginning the human being does not possess any identity or value. By posing the acts that constitute him, he makes his existence more significant. (Frankl and Logotherapy)


Simone de Beauvoir uses this concept in her feminist existentialism to develop the idea that "one is not born a woman, but becomes one".

**I was shocked when Camus' guy, Meursault  got the Guillotine.  I had forgotten that detail since I first read the book in High School.  The old methods of killing criminals seem to me so much worse than our modern death by lethal injection.   I thought he was a fool for not putting any effort into his own defense during the trial.  For Camus Mersault was not 'a reject, but a poor and naked man... who without any heroic pretensions, agrees to die for the truth."    I'd rather cop a plea, take man one and do life rather than accept the guillotine, I'll tell ya.  "Every day above ground is a good day" is my motto.

 "When you're dead you're done." says Gatemouth Brown.